Speaker 1: The fried egg requires a different technique. What you need
Speaker 1: to do is actually square the face so they'll dig
Speaker 1: down underneath that bad lie and propel that ball right
Speaker 1: out onto the green.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Playing out of a buried lion of
Speaker 2: bunker is completely different than playing out of a night
Speaker 2: clean lion of greenside bunker. You need to be aggressive
Speaker 2: on any show.
Speaker 3: Weather it's sitting cleanly for its fried egg.
Speaker 2: Well, we've all faithd it.
Speaker 4: The dreaded fried egg not to be feared, though, it's
Speaker 4: actually a pretty easy shot to hit. Welcome to the
Speaker 4: School of Golf Architecture, Episode four collaboration. So the first
Speaker 4: three episodes of the School of Golf Architecture covered the
Speaker 4: relationship between a course and its sight. The discussion often
Speaker 4: wandered into philosophical territory, and I'm into that kind of
Speaker 4: thing obviously, But for this installment, I wanted to get practical.
Speaker 4: How exactly do golf courses get built. There's a tendency
Speaker 4: when discussing the stories behind golf courses to focus on
Speaker 4: the individual architect. We lionize figures like Harry Colt, Seth Rayner,
Speaker 4: Donald Ross, and Pete Dye, and we see the projects
Speaker 4: they work on as essentially theirs. We speak of Mackenzie's
Speaker 4: Cypress Point or Doak's Pacific Dunes on the flip side.
Speaker 4: When a course doesn't turn out well, we know who
Speaker 4: to blame, but the truth is that it takes many
Speaker 4: more people than the lead architect to create a golf course. First,
Speaker 4: they are the owners. These may include a developer, or
Speaker 4: a general manager, or a green committee chair, or all
Speaker 4: the above. Usually a superintendent will be in the mix too.
Speaker 4: The owners may initiate the project and their vision may
Speaker 4: animate it, but their role is often behind the scenes
Speaker 4: and not very well understood. Then there are the builders.
Speaker 4: Among them are skilled shapers, some of whom travel the
Speaker 4: world with architects like Bill Corr, Tom Doak and Gil
Speaker 4: Hants laboring over bunker edges and green contours. Less celebrated
Speaker 4: are the construction companies that do grading, drainage, irrigation, grassing,
Speaker 4: and other unromantic tasks. Some design firms use these contractors
Speaker 4: for more specialized shaping work, others make a point of
Speaker 4: not doing so. In the middle of it all is
Speaker 4: the architect who appeases the owners and manages the builders
Speaker 4: while making sure that the course doesn't feel like it
Speaker 4: was designed by committee, even if it was. In other words,
Speaker 4: to be good at golf architecture, you have to be
Speaker 4: good at collaboration. I didn't know much about the collaborative
Speaker 4: aspects of golf course construction, so I called up Andy Staples.
Speaker 4: Andy is uniquely thoughtful about the practical side of the business.
Speaker 4: He's done excellent work at courses as different as Sandhollow Resort,
Speaker 4: Meadowbrook country Club, and rock Wind Community Links. Right now,
Speaker 4: he's working on a master plan for Olympia Fields Country
Speaker 4: Club outside Chicago. In talking to Andy, I discovered how
Speaker 4: broad a topic collaboration and golf course design is. We
Speaker 4: discussed how he works with owners, contractors, and shapers. We
Speaker 4: discussed what design build means and how people often misunderstand it.
Speaker 4: We discussed whether architects get too much credit. In fact,
Speaker 4: we discussed much more than I was able to include
Speaker 4: in this episode. You can find some extras from our
Speaker 4: conversation on the Frida Egg dot com.
Speaker 3: And so, to me, that collaboration around around the three
Speaker 3: equal parts of owner, architect and contractor is so important.
Speaker 4: So you would say that there's kind of like a
Speaker 4: triangle of collaboration.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see that exactly because without you know, without
Speaker 3: the architect building himself, there's the need to have him there. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: the owner is on he's the one that he kind
Speaker 3: of puts this all together, and generally it's his vision,
Speaker 3: but he needs an architect, he needs a contractor to
Speaker 3: see that vision too.
Speaker 4: Fruition, let's start with the ownership side of it. Working
Speaker 4: with clients of various kinds, could you describe a typical
Speaker 4: relationship that you might have with an owner. I know
Speaker 4: they're a variety of owners, but what is that relationship
Speaker 4: and back and forth?
Speaker 3: Usually, like, generally speaking, I'm not dealing with just one
Speaker 3: quote unquote owner. I have done that and that Those
Speaker 3: are great when you just have one point of contact
Speaker 3: and one guy cut in the checks. But you know,
Speaker 3: typically there's committees, there's multiple people that I report to,
Speaker 3: whether it's a master planing committee or green chairman or
Speaker 3: a general manager superintendent. So typically it's kind of a
Speaker 3: revolving door. And it's actually funny.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the conversations I just had today is, Okay,
Speaker 3: I have a conversation with the superintendent. I'm got to
Speaker 3: hang up and I'm gonna say Okay, let's reach out
Speaker 3: to the general manager and have the same conversation, the
Speaker 3: same sub matter, but in a different way. You know, Okay,
Speaker 3: mister general managers, here's here's what's going on. So let
Speaker 3: me just you know, nothing's nothing's wrong. Just I just
Speaker 3: want to keep you updated. And so it's really a
Speaker 3: it's a dance of personalities.
Speaker 2: Is really what it is.
Speaker 3: So I nine times out of ten, I'm dealing with
Speaker 3: multiple people, and that that's really indicative of how we're chosen.
Speaker 3: I mean when we first hear of jobs, you know,
Speaker 3: whether you're on a list of two or three or
Speaker 3: you I was selected out of fifteen people on a
Speaker 3: project as well, So you know, there's always multiple people
Speaker 3: that when the project gets serious, they want to get
Speaker 3: involved and so typically that will dwindle to you know,
Speaker 3: three or five people. But there's always multiple people, I
Speaker 3: would say, on every project.
Speaker 4: So you mentioned the kind of architect selection process. How
Speaker 4: does that usually go for you? This is something of
Speaker 4: a mystery to me, actually, how architects really go about
Speaker 4: getting jobs. Maybe it's even mysterious to a few architects
Speaker 4: out there.
Speaker 3: You know that we're all still trying to figure that out.
Speaker 3: You know, you can't do enough good work and have
Speaker 3: enough of a reputation at all in your in your
Speaker 3: in your profession. So what we all work to is
Speaker 3: just to get some form of a of a name
Speaker 3: recognition so that when a project comes up in an area,
Speaker 3: or a type of project by maybe an old architect
Speaker 3: or a sustainability project, so that they think of me.
Speaker 3: And so it's arranged from being on a list where
Speaker 3: I'll get a call from a superintendent or a committee
Speaker 3: member saying, hey, we're compiling a list of guys, want
Speaker 3: to check and see you know if you are available.
Speaker 3: Are you interested? This is you know, ask me some
Speaker 3: questions and I'll let you know. What we're trying to
Speaker 3: do is see if you're interested. So I would say
Speaker 3: that's probably half of my projects are are now kind
Speaker 3: of inbound, and then there's others that are just flat
Speaker 3: out coal calls. I got a job here in Phoenix
Speaker 3: not too long ago, where you know, I have a
Speaker 3: guy that helps me call here in my office, I say,
Speaker 3: here's a list. Call these guys, see if there's an
Speaker 3: interest in Sure enough, they were just putting together an
Speaker 3: RFP for architects, and you know, we just happened to
Speaker 3: grab them and we ended up getting the job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, obviously the golf construction industry has contracted in recent years.
Speaker 4: There are just fewer big new build projects. How do
Speaker 4: you think that general kind of contraction of the industry
Speaker 4: or the decline in new projects has changed the way
Speaker 4: that architects connect with jobs.
Speaker 3: You kind of got to understand when we go back
Speaker 3: and we talk about how we got here, the construction
Speaker 3: technology and construction industry really started to explode when the
Speaker 3: certain things like USGA greens and irrigation systems. You know,
Speaker 3: coming out of the fifties and the sixties, golf got
Speaker 3: real complicated and now you needed it wasn't just pushing
Speaker 3: up greens, and it wasn't just doing things that maybe
Speaker 3: maybe rudimentally you were doing before. And so when the
Speaker 3: golf boom happened, not only was there a lot of projects,
Speaker 3: there was a lot of complexities that we had to
Speaker 3: really worry about. Who was actually installing these Like a
Speaker 3: USGA green was new for a lot of years. You know,
Speaker 3: irrigation systems are knew. We want to have somebody that
Speaker 3: understood how to do those things. And so now with
Speaker 3: the contraction we've had a chance to just sit back
Speaker 3: and breathe and say, Okay, well there are less projects.
Speaker 3: Now I get to spend the time in the job,
Speaker 3: in the field, on the job, working to craft the project.
Speaker 3: And I would say there's definitely a greater appreciation for
Speaker 3: understanding the architect needs. You can spend more time in
Speaker 3: the field and be able to find the guys they
Speaker 3: want to work on their projects.
Speaker 4: So you get to spend more time in the field
Speaker 4: when there are fewer projects. I would imagine you also
Speaker 4: get to spend more time communicating with these different points
Speaker 4: of contact at the club or or who are associated
Speaker 4: with the development project. Do you see a big part
Speaker 4: of your job as not only being able to communicate
Speaker 4: with those folks, but trying to influence them in some
Speaker 4: way or even educate them about what you're trying to
Speaker 4: do on the golf course or what the golf course
Speaker 4: could be.
Speaker 3: For the most part, this is their first project, probably
Speaker 3: going to be their last project, and they don't have
Speaker 3: any idea, So they're actually selecting an architect in part
Speaker 3: to help them through that process. So they want to
Speaker 3: know what it is that you think needs to be done.
Speaker 3: We want to know how much that costs. You know,
Speaker 3: they don't know much of anything going into it. So
Speaker 3: a lot of what it is that you do through
Speaker 3: the whole process is actually living up to the things
Speaker 3: you said. From the very beginning. We talked a little
Speaker 3: bit about how you're what's typical in the selection process.
Speaker 3: More times now than ever, you're giving owners a general
Speaker 3: idea of how much time it's going to take. You're
Speaker 3: going to talk about general ideas of costs. You're going
Speaker 3: to give them ideas. I mean, my gosh, we're going
Speaker 3: through process now where you actually do full on renderings
Speaker 3: and before and after images to just get the job.
Speaker 3: And so then you get the job, and now you
Speaker 3: have to actually live up to what you said. So now,
Speaker 3: if you told them that you could get your project done,
Speaker 3: you know from August fifteenth to November first, you better
Speaker 3: armwell be ready to do that. So when you're actually
Speaker 3: out there building now, now you're living up to the
Speaker 3: actually doing what you said you wanted you know you
Speaker 3: were going to do, and managing all those pieces and
Speaker 3: making sure the contractor is the right contractor and is
Speaker 3: staying on budget, on schedule, and then you know, updating
Speaker 3: the owner along the way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it seems like the really thorough planning that you
Speaker 4: need to do for a job today in the one way.
Speaker 4: In one way, it kind of shackles you to executing
Speaker 4: that plan, but also it gives you something to fall
Speaker 4: back on to say, hey, you know, this is the
Speaker 4: idea that we've had from the beginning, and it allows
Speaker 4: you to kind of get your design ideas out there
Speaker 4: right from the beginning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's it's certainly a balance of first
Speaker 3: impressions and what you're thinking that the creative aspects of
Speaker 3: what we're doing.
Speaker 2: Often, I think with a lot.
Speaker 3: Of us, we have those creative ideas the moment we
Speaker 3: step out on the golf course for the first time
Speaker 3: or how many times you've been there. And then let's
Speaker 3: say you get hired and you go through a design plan,
Speaker 3: almost always you come back to some of the very
Speaker 3: first things that you thought. Certain vistas certain tweak the
Speaker 3: routing or a different type of bunker strategy or style.
Speaker 3: So generally speaking, I think, you know, I try, I
Speaker 3: personally try to keep the planning work on a on
Speaker 3: a top level, like, Okay, we're going to generally have
Speaker 3: this style of greens, the bunkers are going to be
Speaker 3: grass faced, they're going to be generally about sixty of them,
Speaker 3: and they're going to be about a thousand square feet apiece,
Speaker 3: and you know exactly where they're going to be. We're
Speaker 3: going to massage them in the field. But here's a
Speaker 3: rendering that kind of gives you the reasons for why
Speaker 3: we're doing it. And I always leave room for that
Speaker 3: kind of interpretation in the field because that's that's where
Speaker 3: a lot of that creative magic, if you will, happens,
Speaker 3: and you know, that's where this idea of design build
Speaker 3: really starts to you know, it's there's a whole process
Speaker 3: to tee up the project. Probably eighty percent of the
Speaker 3: project is all office and presentation and buying, and then
Speaker 3: a good portion of you know, twenty percent of the
Speaker 3: actual work ends up getting out in the field, but
Speaker 3: it's almost one hundred percent of what everyone sees at
Speaker 3: that point. And so I always leave open for that
Speaker 3: type of massaging and that type of ad living, if
Speaker 3: you will.
Speaker 4: Well, that gives us a good opening to talk about
Speaker 4: in a little more detail the process in the field.
Speaker 4: What does design build mean to you?
Speaker 3: In the truest sense, To me, design build means that
Speaker 3: an owner is open to not knowing all of the questions,
Speaker 3: answers to all the questions. They have a general budget,
Speaker 3: they have a general timeline. But you've got a group
Speaker 3: of guys that know how to do certain things that
Speaker 3: you need done. And you begin and we all participate
Speaker 3: in the construction, and then we work for as long
Speaker 3: as we need to and we're done, and we make
Speaker 3: the adjustments along the way. We're not focused on absolutely
Speaker 3: having to have everything done at a certain time. You know,
Speaker 3: to me, the construction industry went very wrong when we
Speaker 3: started to focus on cheap, fast, and good. You know,
Speaker 3: cheap and fast, but it's generally not going to be good.
Speaker 3: If it's good and it's fast, it's not going to
Speaker 3: be cheap. You can have two of those three. But
Speaker 3: our industry has done a really good job of trying
Speaker 3: to do all three, and so contractors race to that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I talked earlier about the fact that the
Speaker 3: construction technology advanced so quickly. These contractors were there to
Speaker 3: do it, and they they could do it for generally
Speaker 3: a reasonable number, and they could do it quickly, and
Speaker 3: for the most part. You know, when I say good architecturally,
Speaker 3: probably not very good, but at least it was structurally sound.
Speaker 3: And now design build eliminates all of that. And I
Speaker 3: think once you eliminate a schedule, everybody has a budget.
Speaker 3: But once you eliminate the schedule and we realize that
Speaker 3: the creative aspects are meant to be an art form.
Speaker 3: Golf architecture is an art form and not a schedule,
Speaker 3: and it's not a budget, then that's where the truest
Speaker 3: sense of design build comes in.
Speaker 4: Sure. Now, what do you think people often misunderstand about
Speaker 4: design build.
Speaker 3: Well, they assume that there is only one way and
Speaker 3: that if you're not on the architect is not on
Speaker 3: the bulldozer, then it must not be design build and
Speaker 3: when in fact, a lot of these guys that are
Speaker 3: on their own dozers are working right alongside some of
Speaker 3: these major contractors, and so you know, it all now
Speaker 3: is a matter of perception of what it actually is.
Speaker 3: Let's be honest, at the end of the day, I
Speaker 3: don't think anyone really cares whether it's design build or
Speaker 3: design bid or through a contractor drawing plans. They would
Speaker 3: want to know if it's a good project, and if
Speaker 3: it's a good golf course, then you know, obviously you're
Speaker 3: doing something right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's such an interesting answer because there's this
Speaker 4: tendency and you know, I'll raise my hand and say
Speaker 4: that I've thought kind of lazily in this way myself
Speaker 4: before that there is a dichotomy between design build and
Speaker 4: design bid that anytime you involve a contractor, you're kind
Speaker 4: of violating the purity of the design build process. And
Speaker 4: it sounds like it's it's much more gray than that.
Speaker 4: So what does it mean to involve a contractor? How
Speaker 4: do you work with contractors? And again, what do you
Speaker 4: think people misunderstand about the involvement of contractors in golf
Speaker 4: course projects.
Speaker 3: I'd be hard pressed to understand any golf course project
Speaker 3: today it doesn't have some form of a golf course
Speaker 3: contractor involved with it. So to me, unless it's as
Speaker 3: smallest a projects, a small green complex or some bunkers
Speaker 3: or some te's, there's going to be a contractor involved.
Speaker 3: And the biggest pivot that's happened in our industry now
Speaker 3: is that there are more and more people coming that
Speaker 3: understand the game of golf, and one of the biggest
Speaker 3: miss numbers I think that has happened with golf course
Speaker 3: contractors is that they all of a sudden they don't
Speaker 3: care about golfer. They're They're not somebody that ends up,
Speaker 3: you know, appreciating what you're now. Granted, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of golf course contractors that have no idea what a
Speaker 3: bunker is or what a green is.
Speaker 2: They're just on a piece of equipment.
Speaker 3: But now more than ever, there's guys that are coming
Speaker 3: into this field that understand that these guys are passionate
Speaker 3: about the game of golf and are setting out to
Speaker 3: build golf courses. And I think one of the things
Speaker 3: that is probably pretty true in the past and not
Speaker 3: so much anymore, is that these golf course builders just
Speaker 3: looked like it, you know, they looked at as an
Speaker 3: assembly line and once they once the train started moving,
Speaker 3: every train car had its role and it just went
Speaker 3: until it was done. It was really hard to get
Speaker 3: that train going, But once that train was moving, it
Speaker 3: is really hard to slow it down. And the architect's
Speaker 3: job is to actually slow that train down, to stop
Speaker 3: and say, hey, listen, this is a golf course we're building.
Speaker 3: We need to do some tinkering here. This isn't quite right,
Speaker 3: and I don't care if your schedule says it's going
Speaker 3: that fastest screen is not right yet. And that's why
Speaker 3: I've always tried to manage my projects is to allow
Speaker 3: the contractor to do the heavy lifting, the high liability work,
Speaker 3: the irrigation work, the grading, the drainage, and then have
Speaker 3: at least one, if not multiple guys in there that
Speaker 3: are there with the right amount of time doing the
Speaker 3: specialty work, the feature work, the actual creative work, the
Speaker 3: artistic work, the stuff that people love to play and
Speaker 3: what makes golf courses good.
Speaker 4: Do you think that contractors have adjusted recently in the
Speaker 4: same way that architects have to a smaller industry, Our
Speaker 4: contractor is starting to operate more along a kind of
Speaker 4: Each project is unique model, and let's spend the time
Speaker 4: to get it right.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a great question, and I would tell
Speaker 3: you that that the industry is segmented. The aspect that
Speaker 3: has gotten the architecture and has understood that architecture matters.
Speaker 3: These old clubs matter. These are guys that have aligned
Speaker 3: themselves with the top architects and the top clubs. They
Speaker 3: charge a good fair wage for it, and they set
Speaker 3: the schedule and celebrate the architecture celebrate the quality and
Speaker 3: they get paid to do that. Whereas you know, post recession,
Speaker 3: you have an entire group of other people because you know,
Speaker 3: the bigger a lot of contractors have gone by the wayside,
Speaker 3: and the bigger contractors have gotten bigger, and now those
Speaker 3: guys are numbers games and they're just yeah, they understand
Speaker 3: that the architecture part of this is not has not
Speaker 3: gone away, so they're appreciative of it, and they now
Speaker 3: more so than ever. When I first started selecting my
Speaker 3: own shapers, they were like, no, we don't do that, No,
Speaker 3: we don't do that. But now you it's hard pressed
Speaker 3: to find another contractor that doesn't allow an architect to
Speaker 3: bring his own shaper. So that's a little bit of
Speaker 3: a tweak, but it's still numbers game.
Speaker 4: Do you find yourself often working with the same set
Speaker 4: of shapers to do some of that finished work that
Speaker 4: you're talking about, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing like being able to go up
Speaker 3: to a particular bunker or a concept and just say, hey, listen,
Speaker 3: this green angles from right to left. There's a bunker front, left,
Speaker 3: there's maybe a roll off in the back, and a
Speaker 3: couple of bunkers. I'm thinking of this hole at Royal Melbourne,
Speaker 3: or you know, I did this at San Holo and
Speaker 3: then they go build it. That to me is the
Speaker 3: truest sense of the freedom that you get when you
Speaker 3: get some familiarity with the guys you're working with. It's
Speaker 3: so frustrating when you get a contractor and you say, hey,
Speaker 3: have you ever been to the old course at Saint Andrews.
Speaker 3: Have you ever been to Shinnecock?
Speaker 2: What's that? You know? So you know?
Speaker 3: And those are real conversations you have with shapers are like, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I've been in that bunker, actually made par
Speaker 3: from that bunker and it's okay, perfect, not quite as deep,
Speaker 3: but go ahead and go with that concept.
Speaker 4: How do you go about collaborating with people in the
Speaker 4: field old who maybe don't have the reference points that
Speaker 4: you would expect or haven't worked on one of your
Speaker 4: projects before. Does it just mean that you're more involved
Speaker 4: on a granular level with the work that they're doing
Speaker 4: out there? You know, what's your approach?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think if you're we know when it's right and
Speaker 3: we know when it's wrong. And you know, if you've
Speaker 3: got something started and it's just not going in the
Speaker 3: right direction. The only way to do it is to actually,
Speaker 3: in some cases get on the piece of equipment and
Speaker 3: do it yourself, or just stand there and wait for
Speaker 3: them to get it right. And I think that's where
Speaker 3: the time of this new mentality, this opportunity to spend
Speaker 3: more time, really is important. You know, a good side
Speaker 3: visits to me is anywhere from two to three days.
Speaker 3: And you know, I find too that if you're there,
Speaker 3: there's certain parts of the golf course that you can
Speaker 3: be there. You don't need to be there, there's some
Speaker 3: work that needs to be done. You don't need to
Speaker 3: be there all the time. But you know, when we
Speaker 3: were actually into the detailed work of bunker edging and
Speaker 3: green slopes, I'm there the entire day, finishing it off hand, raking, shoveling,
Speaker 3: and actually showing them exactly what we're talking about. Pictures
Speaker 3: are very very handy. I'll be texting pictures, I'll be
Speaker 3: sketching the iPad and the field work of around GPS
Speaker 3: and the ability to just kind of monitor and communicate
Speaker 3: that way is at an all time high.
Speaker 4: You know what part of what fascinates me about golf
Speaker 4: course architects is that they're at the center of this
Speaker 4: mailstream of owners, of contractors, of shapers, of just you know,
Speaker 4: all sorts of different people with their own interests and
Speaker 4: their own perspectives and personalities, and the golf course architect
Speaker 4: has to somehow impose some kind of order on that
Speaker 4: chaos and turn it into collaboration, to take this all
Speaker 4: these different people and somehow unify them around a project.
Speaker 4: What kind of interpersonal skills do you think architects need
Speaker 4: to have in order to do that?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: That that's a great question, and it's also one that's
Speaker 3: really hard for me to kind of answer across the board.
Speaker 3: I can I can answer for my own sake, and
Speaker 3: I learned really early on that we spend so much
Speaker 3: time and passion into this creation that the people we
Speaker 3: work with we want to have fun with them, we
Speaker 3: want to be friends with them, we want we want
Speaker 3: to have some We have to understand that this is
Speaker 3: the game of golf. We have the common purpose of
Speaker 3: what we're creating. And from my standpoint, the personality for
Speaker 3: me is just the understand that the passion comes.
Speaker 2: Through with my work.
Speaker 3: We're here to build the best golf course that we
Speaker 3: possibly can, and that ultimately is going to be a
Speaker 3: He's something that lives far greater than our lives, and
Speaker 3: it's going to be something that they can be proud
Speaker 3: of as owners. I mean, at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: we're we're reflecting our owners and intentions. So to me,
Speaker 3: that the interpersonal skills of understanding how to connect with
Speaker 3: our owners and our contractors. I've always worked hard on
Speaker 3: that and we think we can always be better at it.
Speaker 3: But once I started figuring out that if I'm spending
Speaker 3: my owners like it was his own, I know that
Speaker 3: I was going to go I was going to drive
Speaker 3: some consensus with him, and that's what I try to
Speaker 3: do in all my project.
Speaker 4: Do you think that those skills are even more important
Speaker 4: for golf course architects now than they used to be?
Speaker 2: Well, but I used to be.
Speaker 3: If you're if you're referring to maybe twenty thirty years ago,
Speaker 3: I think you're probably right.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: That's I still get over some of the some of
Speaker 3: the preconceived notions of oh, really, Andy, you're you're gonna
Speaker 3: be here every week? I thought you guys only come
Speaker 3: like every three weeks, you know, And it's like, uh no,
Speaker 3: I'll be here every week, you know. And I certainly
Speaker 3: don't want to broad brush everyone, but the ego of
Speaker 3: golf architecture run amok is certainly something I've had to
Speaker 3: to kind of get over. It's like this, this kind
Speaker 3: of celebrity, this, hey, don't touch them? Can I come
Speaker 3: out and talk?
Speaker 2: You know? All that stuff is like.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if that's just societal or if
Speaker 3: that's you know, I'm not sure, but I do know
Speaker 3: that we as a as a as an industry of
Speaker 3: still trying to get past that. And I think ultimately,
Speaker 3: when you get out on a really good project, you
Speaker 3: realize that all these guys are there having fun. A
Speaker 3: lot of times, they're they're living together or they're close together.
Speaker 3: There's barbecues every Friday after dooon, and there's things that
Speaker 3: you just get a sense that it's a family.
Speaker 2: And so to me, that's that's what makes great projects.
Speaker 4: So you think, like the kind of community vibe on
Speaker 4: a project, is it shows itself in the work.
Speaker 2: Without a doubt, without a doubt.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. So how do you see that coming through?
Speaker 3: I think there's a certain there's definitely a certain expectation
Speaker 3: or a personal pressure that they put on to perform
Speaker 3: certainly as you kind of get into the design shapers
Speaker 3: and people that understand game of golf, they're already looking
Speaker 3: at it from a golf perspective, so they realize, like,
Speaker 3: you know what this means something, you know, I want,
Speaker 3: I want this golf course to be talked, you know,
Speaker 3: right next to some of the greatest golf courses in history.
Speaker 3: And so a really good example would be a typical
Speaker 3: workday is start at seven, and you're off by four
Speaker 3: thirty or five, and you see when the trucks, you know,
Speaker 3: everyone get golf course and they get in the trucks
Speaker 3: and they go. And some of the best times that
Speaker 3: I've had is creating those details right at sunset when
Speaker 3: everyone's gone and we're out there, just as the shadows
Speaker 3: are creating, we go back to the tea so it's
Speaker 3: not quite right, and we go back and forth and
Speaker 3: those types of kind of interactions that you will only
Speaker 3: see at that particular time during the day of which
Speaker 3: every single golfer that golf for the rest of the
Speaker 3: life of that course is going to see that course
Speaker 3: at that time because it's still the daylight, there's still golfing.
Speaker 3: So that kind of buy in and that kind of
Speaker 3: passion around creation, I have no doubt only happens when
Speaker 3: people understand the the pressure to perform and the interest
Speaker 3: to perform, and the context of what it is that.
Speaker 4: We're doing, and maybe they want to be there.
Speaker 2: They have no other place to go.
Speaker 4: Absolutely yeah, they're like, yeah, this is better than watching
Speaker 4: TV in my hotel room. I like being around these
Speaker 4: people in this place. I think I'll stay yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so the rental companies have a fifty hour limit
Speaker 3: on your renal equipment, and so you know, the best
Speaker 3: thing that we know that we what we're doing is
Speaker 3: when we're blowing through the fifty hours a week on
Speaker 3: the running the dose or running a sampro, running an excavator,
Speaker 3: because that means you're either behind schedule or you're just
Speaker 3: building great stuff, got nothing else to do?
Speaker 4: Is that your favorite thing to do?
Speaker 3: As an architect, there is nothing better than watching things
Speaker 3: happen in the dirt and making some Actually, I'd take
Speaker 3: that one step further. There's nothing better than seeing some
Speaker 3: things come together not only as you've planned it, but
Speaker 3: somewhat The happy mistakes that we talk about in the
Speaker 3: business that only happened in the field and watching that
Speaker 3: come together, I can't imagine doing anything else.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got I mean that sounds awesome, It sounds
Speaker 4: appealing right now, especially I've been inside a lot lately.
Speaker 3: Well, and I think I think one of the empty
Speaker 3: you know, I think one of the best things that's
Speaker 3: happening with the Tom and the Bill and the Gill
Speaker 3: kind of movement is this new understanding that the architects
Speaker 3: aren't the only ones that come up with the ideas,
Speaker 3: that it doesn't.
Speaker 2: All run through one person.
Speaker 3: There is some community about golf architecture that is unlike
Speaker 3: anything else. There's a certain how hollowness that if you're
Speaker 3: only there doing it yourself, that it has to be
Speaker 3: experienced with other people because quite honestly, they're the only
Speaker 3: one that's the joy of this business is understanding that
Speaker 3: you're able to share.
Speaker 2: This and that it isn't all about you.
Speaker 3: And I think that that lack of ego amongst all
Speaker 3: of us that try to work together that way. Now
Speaker 3: it's started a little bit of a snobbery, because we
Speaker 3: certainly think that there's a certain level that we all
Speaker 3: need to achieve to.
Speaker 2: I think, but the end of the end of the day,
Speaker 2: it's for the right reasons.
Speaker 3: It's because we love what we're doing and we love
Speaker 3: how we're doing it.
Speaker 4: So we've kind of completed the circle here. We've talked
Speaker 4: about a little bit about the bid process, about relationships
Speaker 4: with points of contact at a Cloudborough course owners, and
Speaker 4: we've talked about some of the in the field work
Speaker 4: and working with contractors and the actual construction or build process.
Speaker 4: So if I can ask you to put your historians
Speaker 4: hat on for a second, the way that we all
Speaker 4: understand the history of golf architecture is that there have
Speaker 4: been a series of architects who have built great things
Speaker 4: and have made innovations and done things in new ways
Speaker 4: to push the discipline in new directions. And that's how
Speaker 4: change happens over time. It's pushed forward by these great architects.
Speaker 4: In talking to you about collaborating with all these different people,
Speaker 4: I'm actually somewhat in a state of ambivalence about whether
Speaker 4: we give too much credit to the lead architect or
Speaker 4: not enough credit to the lead architect, because on the
Speaker 4: one hand, there are all these other people involved and
Speaker 4: the quality of their work is key to the quality
Speaker 4: of the final product, and yet the lead architect is
Speaker 4: overseeing the whole process, and there has to be an
Speaker 4: enormous expertise brought to bear on that. So I don't know,
Speaker 4: what do you think. Do we overrate individual architects as
Speaker 4: kind of agents of historical change? Is there another way
Speaker 4: for us to see how how great courses come to be?
Speaker 2: I believe so.
Speaker 3: I still have yet to have a project that I have,
Speaker 3: any project that I'm proud of that somebody hasn't had
Speaker 3: as much or more of a role in its creation
Speaker 3: than I did. And I look at Meadowbrook, Medlebrook would
Speaker 3: not be what Meadowbrook is if it wasn't for Scott Clem,
Speaker 3: the shaping shaper that I had on the job. You know,
Speaker 3: rock Wind was Scott Clem and Jim Haley among other guys.
Speaker 3: Dona Haffey was a part of that as well. And
Speaker 3: then I just did some bunkers here in Phoenix, and
Speaker 3: then I'm working in projects southern California. Sterling Gardner's been
Speaker 3: on that fortunately, been the same shaper, on the same contractor,
Speaker 3: and he's have an incredible input, and so it goes
Speaker 3: on and on, and I think we hear a lot
Speaker 3: of that from a lot of the other guys that
Speaker 3: talk about what they do that they know that the
Speaker 3: golf courses wouldn't be what they are without this collaboration
Speaker 3: from other people and a lot of respects. The other
Speaker 3: guys should get more credit than the guys that do.
Speaker 3: And I think you know you're seeing that today, and
Speaker 3: I think that we're certain happened in years past, especially
Speaker 3: given that we know that you know, for McKenzie, for example,
Speaker 3: going down to the sand Belt, he wasn't spending much
Speaker 3: time there. He was in and out, and you know
Speaker 3: that you left behind his ideas, so somebody, you know, Morkham,
Speaker 3: had to implement those. So you know right there that
Speaker 3: that entire sand belt it looks for the way it
Speaker 3: does because at least two people, if not more so
Speaker 3: I believe.
Speaker 2: I believe that.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you though I use this, I use
Speaker 3: this as a as an example. Like when I first
Speaker 3: started my own business, somebody must have told me. It
Speaker 3: has always been in my mind. If you got into
Speaker 3: an elevator and an owner of a possible golf course
Speaker 3: project got in the elevator and you had one one
Speaker 3: floor to make an impression, and that's all you had,
Speaker 3: and you had to leave him with something him or
Speaker 3: her with something before he got off, what was that
Speaker 3: going to be? And I think that's kind of what
Speaker 3: golf design is. You have to boil it that you
Speaker 3: can't say that it was designed by five people.
Speaker 2: It's just the.
Speaker 3: Marketing, the media, all of those things that go along
Speaker 3: with it that people just don't have the bandwidth for
Speaker 3: that wanted to us sign it to one person. And
Speaker 3: I think there's some positive that obviously if you're if
Speaker 3: you're the one person, there's positive, but there's no doubt
Speaker 3: that that's unfair to everybody that's created those projects. Just
Speaker 3: it's just impossible to think of all the details that
Speaker 3: we do and have one person come up with those details.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I sort of. I think about the career that
Speaker 4: I've started to you know, I like to make analogies
Speaker 4: between writers and architects quite a bit. But the fun
Speaker 4: thing that you have as a writer is that you're
Speaker 4: completely in control of everything You're You're not really working
Speaker 4: with anybody else unless you're working with an editor or publisher,
Speaker 4: and you know the people at the Friday We collaborate
Speaker 4: a lot, and we we work together a lot, but
Speaker 4: it's very simple, and I know that you know, when
Speaker 4: something doesn't turn out right, it's just my fault alone,
Speaker 4: and nobody's going to come in and alter it. But yeah,
Speaker 4: golf architecture is just such a different version of artistry.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, Well it brings up a perfect question about
Speaker 3: what happens if something went wrong, What happens if an
Speaker 3: owner didn't want to pay for a certain aspect, or
Speaker 3: the contractor did something short changed, we didn't catch it.
Speaker 3: Should that go into this conversation of what went into
Speaker 3: the golf course? And is almost impossible to actually document
Speaker 3: and explain all of those pieces because you could go
Speaker 3: every single hole and have some some different reason for
Speaker 3: why things happened they how they happened. And that's one
Speaker 3: of the things that I feel like I've been insessive
Speaker 3: about is being involved to make sure those things don't happen.
Speaker 2: And should it matter?
Speaker 3: Should I explain to you as a as a golfer
Speaker 3: or as a raider or something like that about oh, well,
Speaker 3: you didn't realize that we had the wetland here and
Speaker 3: then there was a storm drain. No, you as a golfer,
Speaker 3: you don't care about that, So I need to make
Speaker 3: sure that it's still a good golf course. If it
Speaker 3: can't be a good golf course, I got to figure
Speaker 3: out how not to be involved with it, or if
Speaker 3: I am going to be involved with it, it better be good.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it's a heavy responsibility because I think we
Speaker 4: all do understand the ways in which a golf course
Speaker 4: might go wrong outside of the control of the lead architect.
Speaker 4: But you're right, and that's where I've come down on
Speaker 4: that question often too. It is often something that architects
Speaker 4: bring up as a subject matter that golfers and especially
Speaker 4: golf course critics don't understand. You don't understand what my
Speaker 4: client asked me to do here. My client asked me
Speaker 4: to prepare this course for the US Open, So I
Speaker 4: went ahead and prepared the course for the US Open.
Speaker 4: Why are you critiquing my work if that was the
Speaker 4: objective of the work, and you know that makes sense,
Speaker 4: Like I think that at least if you're going to
Speaker 4: criticize the course, you should know the process that was
Speaker 4: behind the creation of the course. At the same time,
Speaker 4: you play the golf course and you have your reaction
Speaker 4: to it, and that's really you know, what is the
Speaker 4: intention of putting effort into the design of goog golf
Speaker 4: course if not to create a good experience for the
Speaker 4: golfer when the golfer plays it. So isn't that what
Speaker 4: really matters?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and make an experience something that somebody wants to
Speaker 3: come back and play again and again and again. So yeah,
Speaker 3: to me, I've heard those excuses. I've some respects. I've
Speaker 3: been a part of some of those excuses. I understand it.
Speaker 3: Hope to never make those mistakes again, but it's just
Speaker 3: an excuse for putting out average or below average work. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And that's really what it comes down to. And I
Speaker 3: think that's where one of the things that's happened now
Speaker 3: with the reduction of large build new build projects and
Speaker 3: more renovations, is that those misses are going to become
Speaker 3: less and less.
Speaker 4: Those misses are going to become less and less. Let's
Speaker 4: really think about what Andy's saying here, what he said
Speaker 4: throughout that interview. Yes, his industry has shrunk, it may
Speaker 4: shrink more. There are very few new build projects and
Speaker 4: most of them go to a handful of the top
Speaker 4: design firms. That's worrisome, but not a reason to despair.
Speaker 4: In fact, there's an upside here. Everyone from owners to
Speaker 4: builders to architects has been forced to slow down. And
Speaker 4: when you slow down, you can do good work. You
Speaker 4: can even do good work cheaply. This is what hard
Speaker 4: times can do. They can remind us to take a
Speaker 4: minute and focus on what actually matters. In the COVID
Speaker 4: nineteen era, golf has changed. More of us are walking,
Speaker 4: more of us are playing alone, and I like to
Speaker 4: think that more of us are appreciating the simple pleasure
Speaker 4: of being outdoors. In other words, we've all slowed down,
Speaker 4: not in our pace of play, I hope, but in
Speaker 4: our perceptions, if that makes sense. We have more time
Speaker 4: to take in what's around us, see the details of
Speaker 4: the golf course, enjoy the craftsmanship of the architecture. In
Speaker 4: today's best golf course builds and renovations, they're all about
Speaker 4: details and craftsmanship. The best owners, builders and architects know
Speaker 4: the value of taking their time. They slowly learn how
Speaker 4: to collaborate with each other, and they slowly craft every
Speaker 4: bunker lip, every grassing line, and every hummock and hollow
Speaker 4: of every green. They have this time because the industry
Speaker 4: at large has given it to them, and they're taking
Speaker 4: advantage of it. My hope is that golfers today can
Speaker 4: do something similar. If golf becomes quieter and more reflective,
Speaker 4: Let's take the opportunity to study the landscape around us,
Speaker 4: and when that landscape is crafted particularly well, let's give
Speaker 4: thanks to the time, artistry, hard work and collaboration that
Speaker 4: made it possible. If you want to dig deeper into
Speaker 4: this topic, I've put together a post on it for
Speaker 4: the Frida egg dot com. You can also find us
Speaker 4: on Twitter at the fried Egg with underscores between each word,
Speaker 4: and you can find Andy Staples at build Smarter Golf
Speaker 4: Smarter with no EA. Let's keep the discussion going